KIM LAWTON: The Episcopal bishops and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams emerged from their closed door meetings Thursday (September 20) for a public ecumenical prayer service. Despite the deep divisions facing their church, there was a moment of unity as the bishops presented contributions of nearly $1 million to help rebuild the Gulf Coast.
Archbishop Williams saw the work of the Episcopal Church firsthand in New Orleans' devastated Lower Ninth Ward.
(to Archbishop Rowan Williams): I'm just wondering what you thought about what you saw and heard here today?
Archbishop ROWAN WILLIAMS: It's fantastic. It's a real sign of commitment and hope, I think. It's a wonderful thing to see.
LAWTON: But the main reason for the Archbishop's visit was to discuss the issues that could tear the Anglican Communion apart. He spent a day and a half in frank conversations with the American bishops.
Archbishop WILLIAMS (during press conference): I think it would rather be an admission of defeat if we said that we were not capable of working together on the issues that divide us. Whether we'll get to that point I don't know.
LAWTON: This is a regularly scheduled business meeting for the bishops, but it comes on the eve of a crucial deadline, and what happens here could affect the Episcopal Church's future status in the Anglican Communion. In February, the top leaders of the Communion's regional churches gave U.S. Episcopalians until September 30th to clearly state that they will not consecrate any more gay bishops or authorize any more sex-same blessings. Failure to do so, the leaders said, would have unspecified consequences for the Episcopal Church's place in the global church body. Some are speculating that the U.S. church could be asked to leave this historic branch of Christianity.
Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori isn't expecting such radical responses.
Bishop KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI (Presiding Bishop, U.S. Episcopal Church): We are eager to continue and grow our relationships around the Communion, and I think most people believe those relationships will not change significantly.
LAWTON: But relationships have been severely strained since 2003, when the Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, and paved the way for the blessing of same-sex unions. That set off a firestorm of controversy in the U.S. and within more conservative Anglican churches in Africa, Asia and South America -- the so-called Global South.
Bishop JOHN GUERNSEY (Anglican Church of Uganda): When the church really, in our view, departed from biblical authority and the historic teaching of the church it was no longer a matter of simply staying together as if nothing had happened.
LAWTON: John Guernsey is rector of All Saints Church in Woodbridge, Virginia, and he's also a new bishop for the Anglican Church of Uganda. Guernsey's parishioners decided to leave the Episcopal Church last year, but they still wanted to be part of the Anglican Communion. So they put themselves under the authority of the Church of Uganda, which shares their traditional views.
Earlier this month in Uganda, Guernsey was consecrated as an Anglican bishop. But he'll be working in the U.S., overseeing 33 congregations that have affiliated with the Church of Uganda. None of the congregations is ethnically Ugandan.
In August, two American priests were also made bishops for the Anglican Church of Kenya. Still others are now bishops for the Church of Nigeria, all overseeing congregations in the U.S. It's a point of deep contention across the Communion. At the Tanzania meeting, the Anglican leaders urged overseas bishops to stop intervening in U.S. dioceses.
But Guernsey says the Global South wanted to find a way to support disaffected American conservatives.
Bishop GUERNSEY: The Global South has felt that they were not going to abandon those who have taken a faithful stand here in the U.S.
LAWTON: Episcopal leaders accuse the Global South churches of wrongful meddling.
Bishop CHANE: For me, as one bishop, the issue is who's going to control the Communion, who's in charge, who has the power, which is an unusual place to be in, given the loose confederation of churches and provinces that make up the Anglican Communion.
Bishop CHARLES JENKINS (Diocese of Louisiana): I'm tired of the disagreements. I would like to have the disagreements settled. What I'm not willing to do is to settle the disagreements at the price of the mission of the church. I hope that we will find the space, the time, and the freedom to search for more long-lasting and I think creative solutions than we're able to do in the anxious system in which we live in now.
Bishop GUERNSEY: If what's being sought is some kind of artificial fabricated institutional unity to paper over foundational differences over who Jesus is and what he has done and what his work on the cross means for us, then I don't think there's any future in that.
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